Prague!

I left frankfurt early thursday morning for prague. You arent able to take a train straight to prague, so i had a 2 hour train rided to nurnberg, then a 2 hour bus ride from there to prague. I have never booked a bus trip like that so it was a little tricky. I had 30 minutes from when i got off the train to go to the bathroom and find the bus. After asking 4 different people where the bus was and getting 4 different answers, then almost sweating to death from nervousness, i finally found the bus stop which was clearly marked with a big sign right outside the main doors of the station (of course). Somehow i got ridicilously lucky for the second time. The bus was a double decker and not only was i assigned a seat upstairs, i got the front right window seat which everyone knows is the best seat on the bus. I got to see right out the front widnshield the entire drive to prague and had the best view.. It was awesome!

I arrived in prague around 6:30 pm... The bus ride in was absolutely beautiful. The first glimpse of the city showed colorful rennasaince style buildings with gold accents. I quickly realized that prague is one of those cities where literally every building is photo-worthy... It was hard to keep myself under control! I luckily found my hostel with little trouble in about a 15 minute walk. I stayed at hostel orange right on wenceslas square. This has been my favorite hostel yet! The receptionist was so nice and greeted me with a free orange and a map. Then she showed me to my (adorable) room. The whole hostel is painted in bright colors and is just a great atmosphere. The common room was clean and comfortable and actually a good place to hang out in for once. I got settled in my room, then went to the restaurant downstairs to get food to go (they have a discount for hostel guests) that night i talked to some of the people innthe common room. 2 hilarius australian girls who quit their corporate jobs and are travelling for 6 months, a french canadian girl studying in italy, and a guy from missouri on vacation (he actually works in OLATHE, KANSAS...shoutout walton fam! Small world)

The next day i woke up early so i could fit as much into my one day in prague as possible. At 11 am i was scheduled to do one of the sandemans free walking tours, so first i went to find where the tour would start, then walked around for a few hours. Once again, i got really lucky with weather and it was completely clear and 70 degrees... Cant believe ive beem so lucky all semester! One of the big sites in prague is the astrological clock located in old town square. Every hour it goes off and is basically like a giant coo-koo clock. There. Are 12 little figures that spin around inside (for the 12 apostles) and a gold  rooster on top. Then there are 4 other little statues that also move on the hour, on the outside face of the building. The bottom clock is the name clock. Around the clock are 365 traditional czech names. There is a different name designated for each day of the year, and if you have a traditional czech name (like most czechs), each year you get to celebrate your 'name day'. The name day is celebrated just like a birthday in the states. Pretty cool! The whole thing is pretty impression because it was built in 1410 and is still operating! After the clock goes off, a trumpeter plays at the top of the tower and everyone cheers. At first i thought the trumpeter was a cute ancient czech tradition until my tourguide told me they only added the trumpeter 3 years ago because people were generally dissapointed with the lack of excitement after such a buildup for the clock. Oh well.

Astrological Clock

At 11 i met up with my tour group. The tour was really nice.. Not quite as good as the one in edinburgh but it all depends on the guide you get. Here are some pictures from the tour!

trumpet player

old town square

beautiful architecture on every building!

old town square

St. Nicholas Cathedral

Theatre

the crowd waiting to watch the clock go off.. a little excessive

After the free tour was finished i decided to sign up for the 10 euro prague castle tour with the same company. I hadnt planned to originally but since i was by myself i figured id be better off doing it with a group than alone. I met some really cool people on the tour and 6 of them were staying in the same hostel as me! So it worked out great. This tour guide was a lot better than my first one (he apparently writes the scripts for the free tours!) he was from new hampshire and moved to prague 6 years ago, just for the heck of it. He was really cool. The castle was awesome and totally worth it. Its one of the largest royal complexes in the world.

monastery

monastery .. where they also have their own brewery

beautiful prague!

love this building

changing of the guard at prague castle

st vitus cathedral

amazing stained glass.. the pieces were so small!

***SIDENOTE*** i am now currently on my layover on the way back to alicante at the venice airport. This is by far the WORST layover ive ever exlerienced. First of all, i tried to exchange my coronas, and they only accept bills. Some coronas go up to 3 usd in value so i really got screwed there. Then she told me i would only fet 1 euro back for my 100 corona note.. Such a scam! So i gave up and got in line for the ryan air passport check. After standing in line for 15 minutes the lady told me it was too early to check in and that i could t go through for another 3 hours. I was early, but i figured since i was on ryan air layover, i could go through whenever.. Wrong. This meant my food choices were limited to the crowded pizza place or digging through the trashcan for leftovers. I opted for the former and ordered 2 pieces of pizza and a diet coke, which they informed me they dont have from the fountain. I settled for a water and went to get my pizza. Little did i know that one slice of pizza in italian standards is actually a quarter of an ENTIRE pizza in US standards. This not only meant that i spent 8.60 EURO on to slices of pizza, i also had to look like a huge fatty to everyone in the whole restaurant and sat by myself attempting to eat an entire half a pizza. After that bit of fun was over, i went to find a seat in the arrivals hall while i waited for 2 more hours to pass. This is when i discovered there are only 4 chairs in the venice treviso airport. Yep, you guessed it - all 4 chairs are taken! so that brings me to now, sitting on the floor near the ryan air desk watching all the other lucky travellers who get to go through security now, instead of 3 hours from now. Ps. There is no wifi here. :(
***END SIDENOTE

After touring the castle grounds i walked down to find the lennon wall. The lennon wall is basically a huge wall of artistic graffiti dedicated to john lennon. People scribble tons of beatles quotes and other phrases all over the wall in different colors. Some are really artistic and some are simple butbthe whole wall ends of looking pretty cool. I was pretty dissapointed in the wall instelf.. It was MUCH smaler than it appeared in my friends pictures and didnt have as cool designs as i had seen before (but thats to be expected with something llike that) i took a few pictures then headed over to walk across the Charles Bridge.

The charles bridge was beautiful. Its lined with tons of statues and has huge Towers on either end. The statue of of st john nepomuk, near the end of the bridge, is the oldest on the bridge and is supposed to be good luck if you rub the bottom of the statue.

charles bridge

view from the bridge

st john statue

After my long day i was extremely exhausted... I had been on the go for almost 12 hours! I went back to the hostel where i had some new roommates. They were really cool.. It was a group of 2 guys and 2 girls from unifersity of texas, studying in Bath. I watched tv and hung out with them for the rest of the night. We all went to bed pretty early since we were leaving around 7 or 8. My flight left prague at 10:20 and got me here to venice treviso where i have a 7 hour layover. Its been a blast so far, as you've read!

*** UPDATE: after finally being allowed through security, i get down to gate 8 for ryan air which is basically a converted warehouse room with 5 chairs for all 4 gates in the room. 45 minutes til boarding!

Prague was one of my favorite cities in europe ... so beautiful! It definitely had some of the prettiest architecture i've seen and the coolest buildings. I definitely hope to get back there at some point! I was really nervous about doing prague by myself, but I'm so glad I stuck to the plan and didn't back it. It was so, so worth it and even better than I expected. If you had asked me in january if I'd be travelling it a foreign country that speaks CZECH all by myself I would have thought you were crazy. But it was great and definitely something I would do again!